As technology continues to make all of our lives easier, allowing for easy communication and seamless transactions, the same cannot be said for outbound sales teams. For outbound sales and lead gen teams dealing with today’s stack of technology, coupled withpeoples tendency for needing quick sales encounters, has created new barriers in reaching potential customers.

It is now more important than ever to have quality lead lists that will garner your outbound call center the highest conversion rates. While, increasing your pipeline may come down to newer marketing & sales strategies–knowing the data of WHY your outbound sales efforts are not reaching your KPIs is more important than ever.

Are you paying attention to one of the most important metrics of outbound lead generation?

Lead velocity is the rate of change between funneling stages, as a prospect becomes a regular customer. This is an important concept for measuring the efficiency of your sales and marketing teams. Tracking velocity can let you know how well lead generators are doing in finding genuine opportunities, as well as how your team is doing converting those opportunities to real revenue.

The Lead Velocity Worksheet will help you build and utilize the sales funnel more effectively in order to create predictable and sustainable growth. From calculating leads to charting your team’s monthly progress, this resource provides the tools you need to keep ahead of the sales curve.

Start by using the Lead Velocity Calculator to target your sales each month, filling in the numbers as instructed. Enter the sales target you’d like to hit, then enter in your closing rate (based on the number of proposals that are made compared to the number of proposals that are accepted and funded). Let’s say your team makes two proposals, on average, for every "closed deal"; in that case, your closing rate would be 50%.

Then, enter your fit rate (based upon the number of first sales meetings--or qualified leads--that get to the proposal stage). If you need to meet with four prospects to get one proposal, your fit rate would be 25%. Enter the number of qualified leads you are getting per month currently; the calculator will then determine the number of leads you need to meet your sales objectives. If you need more leads than you are currently getting, it’s important to increase your team’s lead velocity.

The last step is to enter the number of months you want to give yourself to meet your lead velocity target; the Lead Velocity Calculator will then automatically calculate your target lead velocity growth rate.

Finally, use the Worksheet’s Lead Velocity Planner, which takes the data from the calculator and uses it to track your team’s progress. Just enter in your qualified leads, and the rest is taken care of for you! Once the information is entered, the worksheet’s charts allow you to clearly see a visual representation of your month-to-month growth, and any gaps between your projected and actual lead velocity numbers. You can see how well your team identifies qualified leads, create more accurate monthly forecasts, and take the first steps towards motivating and focusing your team--and making your business more productive and efficient.

In a marketplace where margins are tighter and productivity can mean the difference between success and failure, lead velocity is a critical factor. It provides transparency in your lead generation efforts, giving managers and sales staff greater clarity about which areas to focus on to improve efficiency, and helping to fill the gap between where you are and where you need to be. So stop staring at numbers without answers every month--use the Lead Velocity Worksheet to help maximize the quality and quantity of your leads, giving your sales team the most useful and focused data possible.